14 November 2013

Steve From Accounting - Remission

If there’s one clichéd view that most people, including
myself, have towards instrumental music is, and please say this in your best
whiny killjoy voice, “Muuuuh, it’d be better if they had a singer”.

With the vast majority of instrumental (Rock and Metal
instrumental stuff at least) music I do find myself expecting a verse to start
at some point. It’s all fine in small doses but hard to get through an album
of. Even Mogwai’s best song was that one that had that man singing on it.

Steve From Accounting are, as you may have deduced,
without singer. An instrumental rock band.I say band, they’re more of a duo
than a band. One chap plays guitar and bass, the other is a bashist. They are
based in the vast, sprawling Metropolis that is Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.

Anyway, they’re kind of Progressive Metal, I can hear echoes of Devin Townsend in the
guitar, maybe some Periphery too, particularly with the subtle use of
electronic ambiences but otherwise, they’re fairly original. The riffs,
goodness the riffs! Remission is packed with them, They’ve kept my interest sufficiently
for me to listen to Remission three times in a row without a single dramatic
sigh of boredom.

Remission kicks off
with the shortest song on the album Cold Outside, a thrilling, frenetic song
built around a nice duggaduggadugga riff.Cataclysm continues the pace and has some nice bleepy guitar in it
towards the end that reminds a little of Hyperdrive by Devin Townsend off of his Ziltoid album.

The pace drops off for a few seconds for the gentle intro
of Rupture of Discourse. It doesn’t last long as the most furious riff yet
pounds along, er, furiously. This one reminds me a lot of Deathmøle, the
Instrumental Metal project of Jeph Jacques, author of Questionable Content. In
fact several of the songs bear a resemblance to Deathmøle, though I would imagine
that’s something of a coincidence than reasons nefarious on either side. It also
features some guitar squeals which are very nice and also \m/.

Ruination has a touch of Groove Metal about it and, I can
vouch for this, sounds ace played really loudly in a car whilst driving very fast
(though still within legal limits). Respite changes things up a bit, as I guess
you’d expect from a song called Respite, and wanders off into Post Rock
territory before getting bored and coming back to Chugland.

Now, I want you to close your eyes and picture a huge, I mean
like three houses tall huge, robot demon thing. He’s all black and spiky and
coldly emotionless. Do you see him? He strides purposefully across a barren
landscape. Remnants of shattered cities line the horizon while the sun burns
low in the sky, a dirty orange colour. Gradually, from the opposite direction,
more huge robot demon things approach. They’re bigger and even more demony than
he is and they want to destroy everything. Though the odds are not in his
favour he must vanquish them! He slowly raises his Laser Axe, powers up his
Supracannon and steps into the fray.

Do you have all that in your mind? The next song,
Behemoth, is what’s playing while all that happens. It’s a nine minute,
mid-paced, monster that stomps all over your ear drums. It’s also, if I’m being
honest, very lazily titled.

Glow comes next and is a soft piece of atmosphere, a
gentle melody that is welcome after the barrage of riffage surrounding it. Leviathan
begins with almost a minute of background noise and a weird mumbly man voice. Then
we’re off again! Leviathan has a very upbeat joyful feel to it, which is nice.
The final song, Lapse is an odd closer in that it’s quite short, fairly
uneventful and then stops dead, I had to check to see if iTunes had bust again.
Odd.

It was nice to listen to an instrumental rock (I’m
guessing classical and electronic stuff doesn’t count) album all the way
through without once (okay, okay, maybe a couple of times) thinking the singer
thing. It’s the first time I can remember doing so since Surfing With The Alien,
which was a very long time ago and was a very pleasant surprise.

8 out of 10 - Oh, now you have my attention and maybe my
money, time and heart

You can listen to Remission, and download it for NAME YOUR PRICE, at
their BandCamp HERE

Life of Agony can never be accused of taking the easy route, that is something that can be said for them. It could be the fact that the...

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Album scoring system

0 - This is proof there is no deity1 - You're really are touching the bottom of the barrel with this one2 - If only there was some quality control3 - It could have been a bit better4 - Well it's alright, but still......5 -Not for everyone but played well6 - Now I see where you were going, but it's not quite there7 - This is good and well worth a check8 - Oh, now you have my attention and maybe my money, time and heart9 - Almost perfect....Almost10 - This is proof there is a deity(For albums that are too crazy to be marked)Crazy Cat symbol - This album cannot be marked, so here is a box of kittens

Singles/EP Marking System

0 - Only to be listened to by people bless with the gift of being deaf1 - Not so much on the bad that it is bottom of the barrel, but it can see the stuff down there2 - Not bad, not good - so average it is Zen3 - Decent, getting there4 - This is really good, well worth checking out5 - I wish I had extra ears to love this more(For Singles/EPs that are too crazy to mark)Crazy Cat symbol - This release cannot be marked, so here is a box of kittens